New Boca Hospital Board All Business

February 5, 1997|By SCOTT GOLD Staff Writer

BOCA RATON - — Boca Raton Community Hospital expanded and reshaped its corporate board on Tuesday, ending Ray C. Osborne's rocky year as chairman and enlisting an elite arsenal of business leaders to determine the institution's future.

The board of trustees, which was expanded from 11 to 21 members, unanimously voted to hand Osborne's gavel to A.E. "Bud" Osborne, a Boca Raton resident - no relation - and the executive vice president of United National Bank in West Palm Beach.

Ray Osborne, blamed by a faction of the board for squandering the public's trust in hospital leadership, did not seek nomination to become chairman again but will remain on the board.

Late last year, the hospital was nearly sold for $190 million to an alliance of Catholic-run health care providers, but the proposal sparked furious public outcry and was abandoned.

Hours after his appointment, however, Bud Osborne acknowledged that the hospital is facing changes in the volatile health care industry, including the growing influence of managed-care programs and enormous for-profit corporations that are threatening independent, nonprofit hospitals.

He said the hospital's future will become the issue again, trumping the bitter infighting - mostly over Ray Osborne - that has left the board impotent for months.

"The present board feels that the status quo isn't acceptable, but that doesn't mean, necessarily, a merger or a sale," he said. "But I think everybody agreed that the future of the hospital is the No. 1 issue."

The Osbornes will be joined by a showcase of Boca Raton business talent, including:

-- David Fuente, chairman and CEO of Office Depot.

-- William Hager, CEO of the National Council on Compensation Insurance Inc., the nation's largest information provider for workers' compensation and health care.

-- Donald Kohnken, former president of Grace Specialty Chemicals and former CEO of National Medical Care.

-- Three current or former banking executives: Clark Cawthon, vice president of private banking for NationsBank in Boca Raton; Bradley Middlebrook II, former Barnett Banks Trust Co. vice president; and Barbara Crocker, former vice president of Chemical Bank and wife of Mizner Park developer Tom Crocker.

-- Dr. Nicholas Breuer, primary care physician.

-- John Shuff, publisher of Boca Raton Magazine.

-- Charles L. Siemon, a key player in the development of Mizner Park and a senior partner in the law firm of Siemon, Larsen & Marsh.

-- Al Travasos, insurance executive and former City Council member.

-- Joan Wargo, former president of the Debbie-Rand Memorial Service League.

To many observers, the 12 appointments signify a coming of age for Boca Raton, a realization that the hospital is not just another civic cause, but a $400 million business with an uncertain future.

"We now have a board with individuals who, in their personal business, analyze trends and deal with them very effectively and very efficiently," Ray Osborne said. "I think that will serve the medical interests of this community. We have a very large business to run."

Ray Osborne's decision not to gun for the chair sidestepped another ugly session of bickering.

An attorney and businessman, Osborne was a key player in the near sale.

The deal was designed to give a coalition of community-based hospitals a foothold in the health care market. But suffocated by a perception that clandestine negotiations were putting the community treasure at risk, the board backed off after the public cried foul.

Debate focused on whether Osborne was a scapegoat for questionable decisions made by a united board or the root of community dissent and mistrust.

"The chairmanship had become a focal point," he said. "The controversy focused unduly on my role as chairman rather than being a dialogue about the issues themselves, separate and apart from personalities."

Some hospital officials are clearly relieved Ray Osborne will no longer be chairman.

"I think Bud has credibility in the community," said board member Ron Assaf, former chief executive officer of Sensormatic Electronics Corp. and a leading critic of Ray Osborne. "I think there's been a change in leadership."

Others, however, balked at the notion that the board can somehow operate more efficiently without Ray Osborne at the helm - and blamed his critics for the stalemate.

"The board they had before was fully capable of making the decision," said Josh Nemzoff, a Nashville, Tenn., hospital broker hired to advise Boca Raton Community Hospital's board of trustees.

"If they hadn't broken up and started attacking Ray Osborne, none of this would have happened. The fact of the matter is, this hospital has been told by multiple consultants ... that if they don't do anything, they aren't going to survive."

Nemzoff's weren't the only concerns about Tuesday's action.

Dr. Dennis Palkon, former chairman of the Florida Atlantic University department of health care administration, said the new board's highly corporate look gives him reservations.

"All of these people are from the corporate, for-profit world," he said. "Even though people see health care as a business, this is a community, not-for-profit entity. Running a bank and running a hospital are two different things."

New members scoffed at the notion, however, that the new board will be more inclined to sell the hospital.

"Although there is a lot of business representation, I think it's a pretty impressive group in terms of its ability to understand the issues in a broad community sense," Siemon said.

"I think we will do what is right for what is really a remarkable community asset that needs to be managed for future generations. I personally have no sense of the likely or probable course. But I have a sense that this group is going to be alert and that things aren't going to happen by default."